


The Old Astronomer, Born Anew

by TheBramblefish



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Ensemble Cast, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Shepard doing what she does best, what happens after you save the galaxy?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBramblefish/pseuds/TheBramblefish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story doesn't end with glorious victory and a noble sacrifice. The galaxy isn't made whole and unhurt in a single moment. Fortunately, Commander Shepard never expected things to magically unfuck themselves. She's more than ready to dust herself off, get back to her ship, and do what she does best. Even better, she's got the best crew in the galaxy to help her along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Astronomer, Born Anew

Shepard thinks she’s lucky, times like this, that her childhood was such a steaming heap of pyjak shit. Fairy tales weren’t really a thing in her life, so “happily ever after” is not a concept with which she’s terribly familiar. If she had been, the aftermath of the reaper war would have been eight different flavors of disappointing. As it were, Shepard just ends up with a bad case of “same shit, different day.”

She wasn’t as dead as she’d been on Alchera, but after the shit storm in the Crucible she was pretty damn close. Grunt of all fucking people hauled her out of the wreckage of the beam and Miranda- bless her perfect genes- kept Shepard alive in what was probably the shittiest field hospital to exist since the Rachni Wars.

She was unconscious for a month as her cybernetics did their work and Miranda plied her trade. By the time she woke up, the geth consensus had undergone what appeared to be a hard reboot and were back in action, the majority of them set on repairing the relays with a fervor Shepard hasn’t seen since Wrex discovered all-you-can-eat buffets.

Turns out that when the Catalyst said “destroy all advanced technology” it actually meant “reapers go boom and everyone else takes a nap.” Which is great, because that means that Shepard doesn’t have to live with the slaughter of the Geth and shit, murdering Edi, on top of the destruction of the Fifth Fleet and Bahak and fuck all else. Miranda explained it to her through a haze of medigel, and what Shepard managed to glean was that shit’s bad, but it could definitely be worse.

Now, two months out from her fabulous field trip to the hell part of the Citadel, she’s on her feet just in time to watch the Normandy limp into port in London. She’s beat to hell, but still flying, and the crew reports no casualties in their first communication as they pass the Sol Relay, and that’s good enough for her.

The reunion is pretty highly televised; Shepard, Hackett, and her Earthside team stand at attention- or what passes for it among some of them. Grunt, Jack, Miranda, and strangely enough, Zaeed, have stuck close, while Samara almost immediately hauled ass for Lessus once the relays were back up and Kasumi- well, somewhere out there she’s alive and well because Shepard kept waking up to red roses and priceless art while she was still bedridden. It beat the hell out of candy and stuffed toys, and it was fun to watch her guards lose their shit over it. Jacob is busy, you know, attending his wife and child, and Shepard isn’t about to hold that against him after they just barely scraped past total galactic annihilation.

So Shepard is pretty sure that the whole suicide team is there when starboard cargo opens up and the Normandy crew disembarks. The officers come last, Garrus and Tali and Liara with them. Edi has an arm wrapped around Joker’s waist as they hit land, a smile pulling at her synthetic lips. It’s probably supposed to be a solemn and official moment, but Shepard stares at her girl, beaten and bruised, and blurts out for the whole damn galaxy to hear.

“Joker, what the hell did you do to my ship!” Joker snorts and shrugs loosely.

“Sorry Commander, some crazy lady decided to blow the relays- you wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

Shepard stomps up the gangplank and pulls Joker into a hug for the second time ever. They break apart and Joker salutes her, his face serious for once. She returns it with a smile.

“Damn good to see you, flight lieutenant.” She mutters.

“You too, Commander.” He says. She turns, salutes her crew, then decides to hell with decorum and sweeps Traynor into a hug too. Tali piles in, dragging Garrus with her, and then it’s an all out hug fest with the whole damn crew embracing and laughing and cheering and fuck if it isn’t the cheesiest, happiest moment of Shepard’s life. Her ship’s still flying, her crew’s alive, Earth is saved, the reapers are gone, and Garrus’ head is pressed to her hair, the soft huff of his breath moving loose strands about as he curls around her. Yeah, group hugs are nice.

The reunion sex- much more private, and much later- is nice too. Garrus’ breath is warm on her neck then too, and yes, hugging is involved.

Then it’s back to cleanup duty, and apparently the Normandy is the galaxy’s best janitorial staff. With Kal’Reegar dead, Tali refuses a post on Rannoch.

“We were going to build a house together.” She says quietly. “Our house on the homeworld.” Her voice is mournful, and Shepard is reminded once more that winning the war cost them all something- it cost Tali Rannoch.

Liara also stays on the Normandy, using her office to orchestrate the rebirth of the Shadow Broker, building her empire agent by agent with every stop they make. She hasn’t brought up going to Thessia, or even Ilium yet. Shepard thinks she might be rather done with her people and their tendency to withhold vital information about their own culture, the protheans, and the whole “saving the galaxy” thing. Joker and Edi would probably actually die before leaving the Normandy, Traynor claims her toothbrush might be needed again, Cortez won’t leave the kodiak to Shepard’s tender mercies, and Vega claims that a month’s leave was more than enough for him.

Garrus looks mortally offended when Shepard asks him if he’s going back to Palaven.

“No Shepard without Vakarian. I’m not leaving you again. Not ever.” He said fiercely, and that was that.

Ashley though, Ash is done. She had to bury her sister after the reapers took the Citadel. She takes an extended leave and goes back to her mom and remaining sisters.

“Maybe I can come back some day, Skipper.” She tells Shepard as she leaves. “Right now, I have to be with them. I can’t lose them too. I can’t.” Shepard gets that, so away Ash goes. She keeps a bunk open for her gunny though; Ash is Alliance to her bones- she’ll be back eventually.

And so Shepard’s ragtag team of galactic saviors take to the skies again. They had their press moment, they had a break, and now they get to clean up the mess that’s left behind. That means long, thankless slogs through every sector, putting down husks, shutting down Cerberus holdouts, and neutralizing the last pockets of indoctrination.

The corruption is far-reaching; they kill humans and turians and asari and even a few elcor (which, what the fuck). Any Cerberus remains are treated to a Normandy scorched earth special, experiments and information funneled through Miranda for decommission and destruction, and in a rare few cases, repurposing. It’s dirty work, but is has to be done, and Shepard is nothing if not skilled in the art of destruction.

**Author's Note:**

> Title/chapter titles inspired by Sarah Williams' brilliant poem, "The Old Astronomer to His Pupil." Probably one of the most lovely and fitting poems for Mass Effect and for Shepard I've ever read.


End file.
